Cash Accelerator

Companies often look to generate cash through cutting dividends, deferring suppliers and reducing headcount. These actions can often have a negative impact on stakeholders and may not be sustainable.

At PwC we have a dedicated team that helps companies work their cash harder, drawing on a wide range of different types of expertise around solutions that release and manage cash in a business. This includes, but goes beyond, the usual areas of receivables, payables and inventory to include such areas as cash forecasting, treasury management, contract optimisation, pensions funding, VAT, capital asset financing and IT. The team works with clients to identify opportunities, establishes plans to deliver them and implements these with management.

A few examples of the team's recent experience are:

• £90m of working capital reductions and the introduction of new forecasting and reporting processes in FTSE media company
• Review of maintenance/sourcing contracts in FTSE oil and gas business yielding £100m of cost and cash savings
• Renegotiation of utility company pension contributions from £50m to £2m of cash, swapping cash cost for non-cash asset transfer
• Implementation of board level cash reporting package to a private equity standard, with a working version established within two weeks

The team draws heavily on the experience gained of working with private equity businesses over recent years where the focus on driving out cash and instilling a cash culture has always been critical. It is the intensity of the focus and the holistic nature of the team's approach that marks them out as different.